One week down, 17 to go!

It's official: the first week of the 2018 Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge has come and gone, and as of this writing, children have logged 7,111,778 million reading minutes! (For comparison: at this time last year, kids had logged just over 5 million minutes.)

Here are some more highlights from week 1: 

• Last Monday we opened the brand-new site to all participants! Right now, we have participation in every state except Vermont, and Puerto Rico.
• So far, 6,099 teachers and 224 librarians/community partners have registered 305,654 children across 5,149 schools and organizations. 
• We unlocked the first of 18 weekly surprises on the site: an interview with Arthur Levine! Students, educators, librarians and community partners: be sure to log into the website each week to check out the latest surprise!
• Reading Ambassadors started to hold summer reading events across the country! Here are some highlights from recent events in Hawaii (2), South Dakota, and Maine. 

Fun picture alert:
Spotted in Texas: Birnham Woods Elementary has these flyers posted in their library window to encourage participation!

And there's still more to come, including:

• On the website: Search functionality on the Map. Soon participants will be able to search for schools, libraries and partner organizations that have logged minutes!
• A press release officially announcing the final Reading Ambassadors list! (Watch for it in June.)
• Full details about the 2018 Summer Reading Road Trip!

Want to share with us your Summer Reading fun? Tag us on social with @Scholastic (Twitter), @ScholasticInc (Instagram) and the hashtag #SummerReading!